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II. The Civil War: Causes, Conflicts, Consequences

However, in some areas of the South in particular, slaves were able to establish a Teaching Idea trade network to gain cash and goods in exchange for their personal crops and Students learned about slave life in craft goods. earlier grades. This section delves into Slaves could not leave the plantation without permission, and by the early how slaves reacted to their inhumane laws were established that prohibited slaves from learning to read and conditions. Review with students what write. About the only thing they could do that their owners did not interfere in they know or remember about slave was go to church—as long as it was a Christian service. Slave owners discouraged life. Make sure they understand that the practice of religions that slaves had known in Africa, but slaves did retain slavery has existed in many civiliza- some aspects of their African culture in their religious practice. Slaves also tions and was not a uniquely American embraced biblical stories about freedom, particularly the story of Moses leading phenomenon. Make sure they also the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. understand the distinctive race-based nature of American slavery. Although Slave Rebellions there were some free blacks and some white indentured servants, the vast Enslaved African found many ways to resist slavery. They broke majority of slaves in the United States tools, lost or misplaced them, worked slowly, and on occasion burned down a were black, and the slave system was slaveholder’s property. Many slaves also attempted to escape from their owners, maintained by and for the benefit of a and others staged rebellions. white elite. Ask students how they As early as 1658, African slaves joined with Native American slaves in might feel if they had been slaves. Hartford, Connecticut, to burn the homes of their owners. Five years later, What might they have done about their African slaves and European indentured servants were caught as they attempted situations? Use this as a lead-in to the a rebellion. Each time a slave uprising took place or a planned uprising was discussion of slave uprisings. exposed by a spy, new, tougher slave codes were passed. Among the regulations might be the banning of meetings of more than two slaves at a time and the adop- tion of slave curfews. A curfew was the time by which all slaves had to be on their Teaching Idea plantation or, if an urban slave, at his or her owner’s house. There are four slave uprisings that stand out, however, for the number of Use Instructional Master 34a–34b, enslaved people involved and the havoc they created in their areas. Slave Rebellions, when discussing each uprising. Stono Uprising • September 9, 1739 • Along the Stono River near Charleston, • Under the leadership of a man named Jemmy, 20 slaves stole weapons from an arsenal and set out for a fort near St. Augustine in to join a group of slaves who had escaped from South Carolina and plantations. The men killed people and burned plantations as they went. They were eventually caught and killed by South Carolina . Conspiracy • , 1800 • Henrico County, • Gabriel Prosser and about 1,000 armed slaves marched on Richmond to seize the state capital and kill all whites except , Methodists, and French. Roads were impassable because of a huge thunderstorm on the night prearranged for the march; in addition, the conspiracy was revealed by two slaves and 600 troops were sent to disperse the rebels; Prosser and 34 others were tried and hanged.

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Denmark Vesey Conspiracy Teaching Idea • May 1822 The information about slave rebellions • Charleston, South Carolina is set up using the journalistic format Vesey, a former slave who had bought his freedom, and an • of when, where, who, what, and how, unknown number of slaves and free blacks plotted to seize Charleston. or the outcome. The “why” in each • Plot revealed by informant; Vesey and 34 others executed case was to escape and/or end slavery. Nat Turner Rebellion Explain that news reporters answer • August 21 to late October, 1831 these questions about an event as they • Southampton County, Virginia write their articles. Then have students imagine they are reporters. They are to • Nat Turner and seven others were joined by slaves as they went from plan- choose one of the uprisings and write a tation to plantation, gathering a force of about 60 people in all. Through a vision, news report about it answering the “5 Turner became convinced he was to kill whites who enslaved ; W’s and the how.” Talk with students for two months he and his men moved around the area, freeing slaves and killing about whether they are covering “the plantation owners, as well as their wives and children. They killed about 60 people. story” as a modern reporter might • Turner was captured and hanged, and there was a terrible backlash. Many cover it, or as a 19th-century newspa- slaves and free Africans who had nothing to do with the rebellion were beaten and per reporter might have covered it. murdered by vindictive white mobs. The Virginia legislature actually considered How might the coverage differ if the abolishing slavery but decided instead to impose restrictive new laws to keep paper reporting the story was a slaves under control. Northern abolitionist paper? A Industrial North versus Agricultural South Southern proslavery paper? The Civil War, or the War Between the States as it was known in the South, arose out of social, political, and economic differences between the Northern states, where slavery had gradually been abandoned, and the Southern states, Teaching Idea where slavery had become both an economic system and a way of life—even Discuss with students the ethical though most white Southerners did not own slaves. dilemmas posed by a . In reality, there were very few large plantations in the South and many small Students should see the inherent vio- farms. The large plantations had anywhere from 20 to 200 slaves and raised tobac- lence in the tyranny of slavery and co or cotton. The crop depended on whether the plantation was located in discuss the general abuse of slaves. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, where tobacco was the chief Is it permissible to use violence to crop, or in the Deep South, where cotton was king. Small farmers typically raised resist an unjust institution or law? their own food and a small cash crop like tobacco or cotton; usually, they owned Make sure students understand that few, if any, slaves. There were few wealthy small farmers. However, the rich the active, violent rebellions planter with a large plantation worked by hundreds of slaves became the ideal to described here go one step beyond which many poor Southern whites aspired. This ideal took hold in their imagina- the civil disobedience practiced by tions and explains why so many poor Southerners were willing to fight for an Thoreau during the Mexican- institution from which they did not directly benefit. Southern intellectuals devel- American War (see p. 254). oped certain arguments to justify the continued use of human beings as slaves. One argument said that slavery was essential to the Southern economy, which was based on the cultivation of cotton, a very labor-intensive crop. These same white Southerners pointed to the abuse of workers in Northern mills and factories and claimed that slavery was actually preferable to working in such a mill. Slavery, they said, ensured that slaves had food, clothing, and shelter, regardless of whether they were healthy and able to work or too ill or too old to work. Some Southerners made religious arguments and claimed that certain Bible passages seemed to sanction slavery. Another argument used was the racist argument that black people were inherently inferior to whites and needed to be taken care of, like small children. History and Geography: American 273